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Ep35 Measure of your Heart

Hello and Welcome to the Way of the Emotional Warrior Podcast. My name is Kai Ehnes and today we will be answering the question of: How would you govern your realm?

What prompted me to want to do an episode on it was a segment of the new U.S President’s Inauguration speech. The segment I want to point out is a great example how one lives in a realm of emotional warriors. He said:

To all those who supported our campaign I am humbled by the faith you have placed in us. To all those who did not support us, let me say this: Hear me out as we move forward. Take a measure of me and my heart.

And if you still disagree, so be it. That’s democracy. That’s America. The right to dissent peaceably, within the guardrails of our republic, is perhaps our nation’s greatest strength.”

In another January on New Year's Day in 1863 Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. When he put pen to paper the president said, and I quote, 'if my name ever goes down in history, it'll be for this act, and my whole soul is in it'.

My whole soul is in it today, on this January day. My whole soul is in this.

This just made me stop my wheels for a second. Did he really just talk about authentic heart and soul? I move forward, optimistically hopeful.

This led me to the point of inviting you to a thought experiment.

If you were given the chance to rule your own realm, what type of ruler would you be?

How would you handle dissent?

Who would you choose to surround yourself with?

What would you prioritize in your kingdom?

What rules or standards would you put in place for everyone to live by?

What level of government intervention would you put into action?

Do you believe that your citizens should be empowered, to a large degree, to rule their own lives?

What is the direction and goal for your realm?

If something or someone threatens your realm, does defeating them take precedence over the welfare of your people?

What will be the standard of living for your people?

If you went into this role wanting to be noble – how will you achieve it?

What if the desires of your citizens develops into something different than what you had planned?

Will you implement an education system?

What will be your standard for an educated citizen entering into adult society?

This are just some questions to get you started.

The reason why I think this is an important activity is because it obviously applies to the world of man and societies and realms, another way to look at this is how you rule yourself. You are the prime ruler of your own internal domain, yet how little do we govern it?

Think about the things you say to yourself

The food you eat

The care you take of your body

The careful training you do of your mind

The amount of heart and spirit you allow to accompany you in your life.

So here it is full circle. If someone had to take measure of your heart…what would they find?

Is your soul in it? You whole soul?

Peace

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Ep34 Miracles and The Soul

Hello and Welcome to the Way of the Emotional Warrior Podcast. My name is Kai Ehnes and today we will be answering the question of:

Soul baby, you’ve got to have soul.

The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism says: “Being Born is a miracle, so what are you going to do with your Life?

Picture that for a moment. Statistically and spiritually we are all miracles by being born. So, that makes your life your birthright. You were given this. Next, he asks what we are going do with this unfolding and uncovering of ourselves, called life. What are we going to do with it?

Hm…this is super interesting when the context of yourself is that you are a miracle. The Miriam-Webster dictionary defines a miracle as an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs. Wow…according to this, our birth is such an extraordinary event that the divine is involved.

I know babies are cute and amazing but add the notion that the baby is divine manifestation!!! Amazing.

So, let’s look at this through the eyes of the Emotional Warrior. We develop through the stages of early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood and old age…which is an amazing life span.

Next, we keep asking ourselves…why are we here? What are we supposed to do? Why do certain things and events happen to me? The questions about our existence are really never ending. However, what I would say regarding our emotions is that we have gifts that allow us to experience this world on multiple levels. Not only do have the gift of the physical life, we also have the ability to live special lives.

Special lives you say?? Yes, grasshopper…special lives.

Here is something I wrote on a cocktail napkin in 2004.

Soul…at the moment of creation, the body, at conception, wraps around a piece of the whole, which I think is the soul. The soul stays dormant in the body until there is a spark, a spiritual epiphany. At that point the awareness of your relationship with the whole/all emerges. This is spiritual consciousness. It requires effort to stay conscious. Through ritual we reconnect and stay connected to the whole.

I recently found this in a drawer and see in light of the miracle of being born in a whole new light. Our purpose is really quite simple. We are miracles and our job is to experience and live a miraculous life.

To me, this makes for such a beautiful experience. Look at the moments in your life and see their miraculous value, their miraculous purpose just for you.

This is super empowering. An Emotional Warrior can wear this wisdom as a second skin of sorts. Every day is really about living a miraculous life. Notice those special things. Empower yourself. This is what is in your ability to control. We have been so conditioned to open the floodgates for toxicity to enter into our system that it just seems natural and eventually becomes our reality. As it turns out though you can absolutely change your inside world. Start by double checking if what the toxic events coming your way are actually welcome guests in your life. If not, then start to develop techniques to keep them out. One such technique is to build up your own positivity and resilience. Remember kaizen steps of continuous improvement. One small step at a time. Your reality is your domain…therefore your experience of the miraculous is also your own.

I did want to bring in some neuroscience. Nils J. Bergman discusses the neuroscience of birth – the case for zero separation. His main point is that newborns should be completely connected to the mother. He calls this zero separation. His article claims the following:

Currently, Western maternal and neonatal care are to a large extent based on routine separation of mother and infant. There is no scientific rationale for this practice, instead, there is a case for Zero Separation of mother and newborn. For the infant, the promotion of Zero...

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Ep33 Leaders and Lovers

Hello and Welcome to the Way of the Emotional Warrior Podcast. My name is Kai Ehnes and today we will be answering the question of:

What do great leaders and lovers have in common?

In our current times of upheaval, a question that came up for me is what is a good leader? What in the world would make me want to follow anyone in this world, especially someone who thinks they are a leader?

The first person that came to mind who wrote a great book on the issue is Simon Sinek. His book, Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Some Don’t, lays out core principles of what makes a good leader especially because what they accomplish is to bring people together into teams that produce ideas and work greater than any one single person could.

A few of the core principles he proposes are as follows:

Real responsibility means caring about other people and allowing yourself to get attached.

Leaders need to take the mental and physical well-being of their followers into account if they want those followers to work as best as they can.

To be an effective leader, you’ll need to learn to delegate and trust people to do their work effectively. If you’ve done your job as a teacher and inspirational manager well enough, your followers should do what they need to perfectly.

Humans First, Numbers Second

I agree with Sinek that leaders with these qualities make it easy to follow them. The ship is moving in the right direction with an effective captain at the helm.

So…What does this have to do with lovers? Nothing…I just wanted a cool title…just kidding😊

Actually, Gary Chapman’s book entitled the 5 Love Languages shows that lovers and leaders can actually have quite a bit in common.

For example: one love language is Words of affirmation. If this is your love language then a great leader would know instantly to work with you that way.

Another one is Acts of Service. This love language means that a great leader would know when you are overwhelmed and would step in to relieve that pressure.

Then there is the love language of Quality time. “This love language is about being together, fully present and engaged in the activity at hand, no matter how trivial.”

A great leader knows to put down the phone, move away from the computer and give you their undivided attention.

So, there it is. Great leaders are great lovers in the sense that they fully engage in their peoples’ love languages.

Is there anything the Way of the Emotional Warrior can add to this? I propose that great lovers and great leaders possess the quality of timing…timing…exquisite timing. When you do something is as important if not moreso than what you do. Both, great leaders and lovers know intuitively what to do and when to do it. This is a carefully crafted skill with tremendous skill and acumen of human behavior and needs.

I believe that what I have described here is actually most beneficial when realized and accomplished within oneself first and then expressed to the outside world. Imagine that you start to understand the timing of your own inner world of wants and needs that are physical, emotional, and spiritual. It is truly an act of empowerment and advancement of one’s consciousness when you can become your own best leader. It is truly accomplished when aligned with the heart frequencies.

Peace

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Ep32 Transcending Fear

Hello and Welcome to the Way of the Emotional Warrior Podcast. My name is Kai Ehnes and today we will be answering the question of: How do we transcend fear?

Welcome to the New Year of 2021. Most of us love to create a new vision of what we want to become at the beginning of a new year. Resolutions, vision boards, new affirmations or mantras, getting into better shape, trying something new…all in all making some changes.

Let’s take a breath for a second. What an amazing amount of pressure we put on ourselves each New Year’s day. We just made it through the holidays and family interactions, some good, some crazy. Now we want to totally reinvent ourselves?

How successful have you been at this in the past? Sure, you probably declared new intentions and even started them but take a look how long or short these declarations last. Gym memberships skyrocket the first week of January and then decline sharply. Diets get started but if you are lucky you make it right to Valentine’s Day when all the sugar treats get thrown in front of you.

This goes on and on, year after year. It is the fodder for any late night comedian. So, why do your intentions simply not last?

This is the work of an emotional warrior. You have to have some sort of leverage to be able to sustain the shift. So how do you get that leverage? What does this even mean?

Leverage means that you have something in your life that you value more than whatever the activity holds that you wish to change. Let’s say you want to work out because you think it will help you feel better. All fine and good until not working out simply feels better than working out. Duh…of course you are going to go work out…NOT.

So, how do you find or get the proper leverage? For some people it will be a life threatening event. Maybe through a heart attack you find healthier food and being alive carries more value for you than eating charred meat. There are numerous examples but what I want to focus on here is the emotional component of leveraging yourself.

What is it that makes us feel so good doing things that are not good for us? Its simple. We firmly believe that feeling good means that we are safe. We seek comfort because that is how we knew that we get to live. Think of the baby that is comforted in its mother’s arms being held close and told that everything will be ok.

Now that you are an adult consider the flaw in this though. Instead of eating healthier foods after the heart attack you get the sack of greasy food which is what you put you into danger in the first place.

In his 2011 work, Stephen Porges, posits that in order to meet our need for socialization, a third subsystem in our brain developed called our “higher social brain” aka the “ventral vagal complex. Evolution transformed our brain to a more complex brainstem which activates when we see a smiling face, a relaxed face, hear a soothing voice, notice that others are calmly gesturing. He called these our social safety cues. This allows us to feel safe in the closeness of others.

That is the neuroscience of our safety and comfort net. It obviously works and has served us. But there is more. We can transcend this. Why should we? Because we all have the right and ability to grow and become more. That is the point of our life. Authentic emotional warriors seek expansion in their lives.

So can you and how do you conquer fear? According to Tim Ferris, conquering fear starts with defining fear. What about those people who are always optimistic? He says that often they are disguising their fear in their excessive optimism. In the world of Emotional Warriors we always seek balance, harmony and homeostasis.

The best place to begin defining fear is take the worst case scenario version of what you are stuck in. Ex: Let’s say you want to eat healthier. You stumble upon vegetables. OH my, I couldn’t possibly stop eating meat. I need the iron and protein plus I am supposed to eat meat,...

Ep31 Eustress…huh?

Hello and Welcome to the Way of the Emotional Warrior Podcast. My name is Kai Ehnes and today we will be answering the question of:

Is there such a thing as good stress?

We have all heard of distress. Distress is what we mean when we usually talk about and hear about people being stressed or stressed out. Phrases like: work has me stressed out, the kids stress me out, everything is pressure, I’m so stressed I will explode.

I am sure most everybody has experienced this to some extreme or another. So, what actually is this stress? It has to do with your autonomic nervous system. It starts with our system in a state of homeostasis. Everything is in balance. All of a sudden something that appears to be dangerous to our survival steps into our immediate proximity and our survival mechanism kicks in and our autonomic nervous system kicks in by secreting massive amounts of adrenalin and other chemicals that allow our body to escape what it perceives to be danger. Then our body looks for safety and gets us there. Whew…safe again to live and fight another day. Now we have our sympathetic nervous system jump in and bring our entire system back to balance…homeostasis.

That is the normal path of our system. The key to that story is that homeostasis or balance is our normal state of being. However, in today’s world that is not how we live. We activate and make our “survival” system turn on all the time. 24 hours a day we caffeinate, push, and strain our system to the point of where at times we can not do it any longer and the system breaks down. Then we go right back to doing it again.

Our society rewards us for more hours worked, more time spent shuffling our kids around from one organized even to another, buying more material goods with the promise of rewards points. Then you realize you have to pay for it all which means more work and time being traded for money.

This is known as the “rat race.” Stop for a second and consider this: are you a rat? Is there actually a race with anywhere to go? Did you actually sign up for this race?

I know that this sounds like I am saying stop and run away from it all. But, that is not at all where I am going with this. First, there is amazing knowledge and power in the simple awareness that one is even involved in this race. Most people do it from a subconscious place and that means they simply do it like an automaton or sleepwalker.

With the knowledge of being in the race, what can you do?

Time to be an emotional warrior. Emotions are the energy underlying all thoughts. Thoughts drive our experience but emotions determine the outcome. Think about that for a second. Emotions determine the outcome…so then do you simply emote your way to freedom? Well, actually, yes but first you have to understand and master the fact that your freedom achieved by your thoughts. Thoughts are 5% while the emotions are 95%. Together they make up our experiences.

Now, do you want your experiences to control you or do you want to create your life journey?

That is where eustress comes into play. Eustress means positive stress. The prefix “eu” comes from Greek meaning health…so, healthy stress. What, there is healthy stress? Sure, think of getting up the energy to ask someone out, giving a speech or a performance. Its all about the good feelings in your gut that let you gather the courage to do something outside of your comfort zone.

Breaking out into new experiences means entering the unknown, which of course means that there is the possibility of failure. This in turn means that a lot of noise is happening in your experience. Doubt and failure creep into everything you think about. This is where most people run back to what they think is safe. The irony is that what they think is safe is actually dangerous because it is a world filled with distress.

So how can you have more eustress and less distress?

The answer is being an emotional warrior. You set up your life, one step at a time, or

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All of us would like to wish all of You Happy Holidays. A state of gratitude allows you to connect to your own heart and communicate authentically with others. We look forward to creating new episodes in the New Year. Be well.

Peace

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Ep29 Things a man oughta know

Hello and Welcome to the Way of the Emotional Warrior Podcast. My name is Kai Ehnes and today we will be answering the question of Hey, are there really things a man oughta know?

I thought we could talk about a song that I heard the other day. The title is “Things a man oughta know!”

The performer is a woman which I think is an interesting perspective on what a man oughta know. When I was a kid you learned how to be a man from other men. Male role models were the conduit for this scared knowledge known as manhood. What is really interesting is that you don’t necessarily get to choose these role models. They are assigned to you like your father, grandfather, uncle etc… I mean in my own case they were there but not what I found to be the men who truly “knew.” They were simply men.

I was mostly raised by my mom, so without knowing it, I was introduced to the world through a female mindset and perspective. I know, I know…get to the part of what he oughta know…in a minute…

Men see the world through the masculine lens. That does not mean macho in this context, it means manifest, obvious, of the world. Mystery is not the main driver of knowledge and awareness. For me, it meant the mainstream version of being a man. Get a job, provide for your family, a good life would be one where you do what most men do. Whatever that is. So isn’t that what a man oughta know?

Let’s see what the song has to say:

How to know when it's love

How to stay when it's tough

How to know you're messin' up a good thing

And how to fix it 'fore it's too late

If you really love a woman, you don't let her go

How to chase forever down a driveway

How to never let it get there in the first place

This really peaked my curiosity. Did or Do I have any kind of clue? I thought I had a bit of a clue but really…do I?

So, I decided to ask my wife. One might say, bad move dude, why would you open up that can of worms and poke the bees nest?

In my search for truth…sometimes you go to the source and get amazing insight.

She agreed with the list from the song. Check…I can work on that. Then she said, personally I would add the following.

I want you to tell me its going to be okay, even if I’m crying or when you have no idea of a plan

Thinking your woman is beautiful even when she doesn’t feel that way

Looking at her like she is a queen even when she feels like a scullery maid

Remembering the good times and forgetting the faults

Loving the woman she is now not the girl she used to be

Hm…the list is getting longer. However…consider the moments each piece of the list lets you be part of. I never wanted to be a passenger in this life…boring…I wanted and want to be out front. That means you get the full experience..Like Jimmy Hendrix said: “Are you experienced”

I have had the honor of experiencing everything on this list and with a person that is truly my better half.

But, do I have anything to add. What about my list. Certainly, I agree with everything said so far. But I thought I would offer a bit of what I think as a man.

I make sure that at least once day I see her. I heard it called, stopping the world. We stop the outside world and I look at her and see her for the beautiful soul she is

I knew she was “The one” the moment we met. We were not even supposed to meet that day, it was a fluke, but it was clear. That was amazing…God/source saw to it that we would meet.

While corny, she is the wind beneath my wings…since we met she inspires me every day to improve and step up my game and consciousness

I have learned to reassure her that everything is okay. This is Trust. I believe that together it will be okay, even when I have no clue.

When I hold her in my arms and she embraces me back, I feel that we are one. One heart beating together.

I have learned to listen, actively listen, Listen between the lines.

Relationships are a delicate dance and I am grateful every day for having this amazing...

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Ep28 Trust, You Say

Hello and Welcome to the Way of the Emotional Warrior Podcast. My name is Kai Ehnes and today we will be answering the question of ___.

Why is so hard to trust: others, god/source, yourself?

The last few weeks have been quite tumultuous for us. Lots of big decisions to say the least. What has been most interesting to me is seeing and learning what real trust looks like.

Here is how I used to see trust. If you try to live an ethical and moral life it puts you into that vibrational frequency. Other people are also in the same vibrational field. To me, this meant that they would be completely trustworthy. Then of course came the character arc and you find out that they did something that ended up breaking that band of trust you thought you had with them. Of course, not to lay blame only on others, I inadvertently also changed my mind about some things and that would be grounds for a breech of trust in their eyes.

Certainly a difficult process, this thing called trust. So, have I learned anything? I think so. Trust is more about yourself and your approach to the world. I generally approach the world and my day believing in myself, my place in the world, and process known as life. That is a basic requirement for me. If I wake up and as of the first second I don’t trust anyone or anything then I am not sure there is a point to engaging in the day.

Here is what I have experienced lately. I believe dreams and goals do work out. Sometimes what you had in mind is not necessarily the best use of your skills so you need to be nudged accordingly. This is the process of life. The things you thought should have worked out and that don’t simply means that you have to do something else. When you are in the right place doing the right things, everything becomes easy. All green lights, doors open easily for you. The right opportunities emerge and you have the wherewithal to take immediate and decisive action. Then the two way street takes on its own life and momentum. This is a beautiful thing.

Is it hard to get to this place of being in the “zone” of your life? Here is a nugget! It is only as difficult as you are resistant to it. Crazy right?

Let me offer an example: let’s say you are a plumber but you should really have a family style ice cream shop. When someone points it out to you, which inevitable will happen, you scoff at the suggestion and carry on doing the job you can’t stand. That is a simple example of resistance.

The emotion of pain and suffering resides underneath that resistance and the best way to integrate your new life is through trust. Trust what? Why is it so difficult to trust anyway?

I find that my outlook on life and actions I take are consistent with how much they align to my heart. Ever since I have adopted heart-mind coherence into my life, slowly but surely the ship called my life has recalibrated itself to the direction allowing me to be my most authentic self in my daily life. So, what I am saying is this. Each of us is special. We have a place in this life on this planet. This purpose is supposed to be how we live. For me, there has been a lot of trial and error. Nothing easy about the process of getting there. But once it became clearer that I was only blocking myself by over-thinking everything and subsequently moving my awareness into my heart…trust just became the basis of my experience.

Since part of the Way of The Emotional Warrior is to look at neuroscience, I wanted to see if the field had some answers about trust. According to Researcher Paul Zak, he found that trust, the simple process of at least 2 people being able to be vulnerable with each other, actually has a chemical foundation. His team isolate that chemical to be oxytocin. He set up experiments that proved that with more oxytocin, people were more like to trust a stranger. Also, they were less willing to take extreme gambling risks. He also found that oxytocin increases empathy.

I find...

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Ep27

Hello and Welcome to the Way of the Emotional Warrior Podcast. My name is Kai Ehnes and today we will be answering the question of ___

Is it right to ask for Abundance?

When I first encountered this idea of asking for abundance, I instantly had my hackles go up. My childhood programming came right into the forefront. Who do you think you are? What makes you think you have a right to more than your lot in life? If you dare ask for it, you will surely be met by some sort of calamity.

Its quite interesting how the mindset of my family had such limitations. I thought about why other people had abundance. When I was young I simply attributed it to fate and luck, for both sides of that question.

However, as time and life have given me some perspective, I have moreso adopted a quote from Adam Savage, one of the hosts of the TV show Mythbusters. He said, “I reject your reality and substitute my own.” I just love that line. It takes courage but it is well worth it.

So if I reject my childhood programming on abundance, what is the substitute? Abundance my friends, abundance. Years ago, the movie “The Secret” came out and it simply disrupted my sleepwalker ways. It talked about the law of attraction and how we can align with it.

This took me down years of rabbit holes, research and great discoveries. It turns out there are quite a few LAWS of the universe. At first it was daunting and frustrating because who is to say this typoe of thinking is correct? Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich put me on the right track and all of a sudden a treasure trove of thinkers from a bygone time emerged. What they had in common was the awareness, realization and implementation of these so called LAWS.

How can this benefit us as Emotional Warriors? The answer is quite simple. Aligning with and living within the LAWS allows us to live the type of life that is intended for us on this planet. The great Buckminster Fuller wrote a book called Earth: The Operator’s Manual. It is a quick read but tells us that there are rules to live by while on this planet. These rules are LAWS. Once you understand why you are here and what being here is about you can slowly by way of KAIZEN continuous improvement, build your life to be what you want it to be.

Think about that for a second

You can build the life that YOU want.

So where to begin. Kathleen McGowen writes the following steps.

1. Get clear with God, source, the divine

2. Embrace your place within the divine plan

3. Make a commitment to be of service to your fellow humans and the planet

- Now you have earned the right to ask God/source to expand the abundance in your life.

With that in mind please be careful of what you ask for. Ask, believe, receive is the name of the game. So don’t ask for what you don’t want. She says to really focus on the quality of your life. Stuff is nice but you get over it quickly. There is no sustainability in worshipping stuff. So now comes the quality of your life.

Why do you want something? What would you do with a windfall of money? How do you relate to this quality of life?

Here is an example: “I want to have a nice house for my family. I want us to enjoy living together, to be safe and allow us to live our lifestyles.”

This is a simple request. But look at what was asked for. Its about the relationships in the house. The getting along, the love and the ability to expand.

That is quite different from the idea of I have to have a 4 BR house, 2.5 bathrooms, 2 car garage. What if you got this house but no love in the home. What good is the house?

So let’s tie this all together.

Yes, there are rules of how to live on this planet and with each other.

Those rules are designed to work in your favor.

You slowly learn how to operate within those rules and you start to incrementally see the abundance develop in your life. With time that abundance grows. Keep in mind that I did not equate abundance and wealth with money....

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Ep26 Gratitude

Hello and Welcome to the Way of the Emotional Warrior Podcast. My name is Kai Ehnes today I wanted to take a moment and express my gratitude.

I am grateful for this podcast and grateful for all of you, my tribe.

I love making this podcast and having the opportunity to share it with you.

If you would like to find out how to create calm in times of chaos, I would like to invite you to visit my website at kaiehnes.com

I wish you a great Thanksgiving Holiday and wish you and your families the best. Be safe and stay healthy.

Peace